[howay governor MUSGRAVE AND CONFEDERATION 27 



signed by five hundred residents of that city and vicinit>' urging 

 its advantages (though situated on an island), as a terminus of the 

 proposed railroad, and asking the addition of a term to the effect that 

 if the surveys should show it to be impracticable to continue the 

 railway to Victoria, then a railway should nevertheless be built by 

 the Dominion to connect Victoria and Nanaimo. In no part of his 

 two years' work in British Columbia does Musgrave's sterling char- 

 acter appear more clearly than in his treatment of this proposition ; 

 and nowhere does his firmness stand out in greater contrast against 

 the weakness and vacillation of his predecessor. He pointed out that 

 Canada had undertaken an enormous task in the construction of a 

 transcontinental railway, of which the engineering and finanical diffi- 

 culties were as yet unknown; that in such a project any paper terms 

 must fall before the imperious demands of grades and natural ob- 

 stacles; and he calmly gave his opinion that the petition was "ridicul- 

 ous, if not greedy." "I am amazed," he cried, "at the concessions 

 that have been granted by the Canadian Government, and were it 

 stipulated that the road should be brought across the straits it might 

 not be built at all. I think the petition should be withdrawn." 

 The delegation refused to accept his suggestion, and after further 

 discussion, he said: "The terms now are better than we had any right 

 to expect — better than I expected. The true policy would be to 

 accept these terms and be confederated and then leave the natural 

 flow of traffic to determine the terminus." When, despite all this, 

 the petition was still pressed, he told the delegation that he could 

 not and would not support it, that it was undignified and provocative 

 of sectional disptites, and that it would "sow the seeds of perennial 

 discord on the mainland." ^^ This claim of Victoria as a terminus, 

 it may be added parenthetically, underlay the war of the routes — 

 Fraser Valley vs. Bute Inlet — that for almost ten years was a factor 

 in retarding the ultimate construction of the railway. 



When the reconstructed Legislative Council met on 5th January, 

 1871, nothing remained but to adopt, formally, the terms of union 

 that had been drafted, debated, amended, and settled. In his 

 opening speech Musgrave referred to them as being "as liberal as this 

 Colony could equitably expect." Indeed, he added, in some respects 

 the arrangements agreed upon were more advantageous than the 

 scheme originally proposed. He referred, doubtless, to the earlier 

 construction of the railway. "I submit them to you," he continued, 

 "in every confidence that you will join with me in this conclusion; 

 and I recommend to you at once to pass an Address to Her Majesty in 

 accordance with the provisions of the British North America Act, 



